TIMES SQUARE — Police arrested a boy and a girl for punching a vendor in the face at an open-air market and stealing her cellphone — the latest in a string of thefts that have plagued the shopping hub for years, sellers said.
The 19-year-old victim was hawking hats, gloves and scarves in a booth at the Theatre District Shopping Court at the corner of West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue around 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19, when six teenagers went into the booth, police said.
As the group perused the offerings, one of the teens punched the employee in the face as another took her cellphone from her jacket pocket, the NYPD said.
Two of the suspects fled southbound on Eighth Avenue, but police caught up to them after a short chase and arrested a 15-year-old Bronx girl and a 15-year-old Manhattan boy at a transit booth on 44th Street and Eighth Avenue, according to police.
A shoelace vendor working at the booth on Tuesday said he witnessed the police chase last week.
“[The employee who was robbed] shouted my name and said “Help! Help!’” recalled the 24-year-old vendor, who gave his name as I.G. and works at the “Shoelaces U Never Tie” booth across the street from the booth that was targeted.
He called 911 as the teens ran off with the woman’s phone, noting thefts are not an uncommon occurrence in the shopping court.
“It’s not the first case in here,” I.G. said.
He said teens — possibly attending neighborhood schools — come into the marketplace at least a few times a week and try to swipe “small, basic stuff” like hats, watches and jewelry.
Many of the vendors don’t even bother reporting the incidents to the police, he said.
Vendor Tuba Yerli, 25, who works in a coat and poncho booth not far from the shoelace stall, said she didn’t file a police report after two teenage girls stole $52 in cash from her purse two weeks earlier.
The girls came into the booth pretending look at coats, and when one of the girls asked to buy something, the vendor went to an ATM to get change, Yerli said.
“I came back, [my purse] was empty,” she said, adding that thefts happen “every week or two.”
A 23-year-old vendor who sells “Infinity Lights” next to Yerli’s booth added that her phone was stolen by a teenage girl after she left it near her cash register last summer.
“She said, ‘What’s this? What’s this?’” explained the vendor, who gave her only first name, Shima, while impersonating the girl looking at the lights inside her booth.
“After that, my phone was gone and she ran off.”
Vendor Vincent Yan, 43, meanwhile, estimated that anywhere from 20 to 30 T-shirts and sweatshirts have been stolen from the “NYC T-Shirts” booth where he works over the past two years.
“There’s people stealing stuff often around here — they pass by, grab it and take off,” he said. “They just grab a couple [items] on top — anything they can get their hands on.”
Yerli and other vendors said police presence at the market seems to have increased recently, which Midtown North Precinct Inspector John Hart confirmed on Wednesday.
"We did not have a lot of reported theft at the market, but subsequent to that event some vendors did mention prior shoplifting" he said, adding that the new Times Square unit has expanded patrols to Eighth Avenue and is covering the market "on a regular basis" with the Midtown North Precinct.
